>The "flat" organizational model seems like a good thing, until you realize that what it actually means is that there's a high managerial branching factor-- sometimes 25 or higher-- which spreads managers way too thin.
In most cases the goal is to get rid of management altogether, and distribute management functions to the teams themselves. You are assuming a direct command and control structure, a flat organization that works is something a little different. I will talk about this below.
>Most "flat" organizations aren't egalitarian-- just lazy when it comes to figuring out a structure.
100% correct there, but wrong when you say:
>Instead, they've traded official organizational hierarchy for unofficial, unstable arrangements that are actually more problematic. In a stable arrangement, your boss is your boss and you are not his competition. In an unstable and informal environment, these "de facto" bosses are also direct competition. That never works well.
Again, this entirely suggests an idea of command and control rather than something else.....
> People management is still necessary, and good people management is extremely valuable (and, sadly, somewhat rare in many organizations). At one time, I thought otherwise, and that it was the engineers only who actually mattered to the health of an organization, but I was wrong.
The problem is though that managers inherently filter communication and this leads to high costs as well. Again, if you want to make sure that specific things get done with appropriate accountability then you want to have this structure, but it isn't the only option.
You are probably wondering by now what the alternative is. The alternative is to have a company based on openness, collaboration, communication, collegiality, and entrepreneurship. This sort of culture is very hard to build and maintain. It means that the executives have to cultivate a well-earned reputation of listening to the folks on the job floor, mentoring them, and only taking action when necessary.
We aren't talking egalitarian here. Rather leadership is distributed and people can lead --- or follow --- based on their ability to convince other people that given approaches are good for the company.
The way we run the LedgerSMB (http://www.ledgersmb.org) development community is as follows:
1) There is a core committee of three of us, though one is pretty in-active and may not last so much longer. we have the power to ban people, but mostly we just help out folks, do development, and so forth. We are the primary developers in addition to managing the community.
2) Everyone else can contribute but is expected to collaborate on their contributions with the rest of the community. Then they can find a committer to commit. Committers are expected to mentor non-committers.
I think this can work as a business management structure. You can have executives who handle planning, organizational goals, etc. But they do this in collaboration with others in the company in whatever position want to be involved.
The big limiting factor though is this. If the executives can't get a well-earned reputation for openness, the whole thing falls apart and you have to go to a de facto or official command and control structure.